Lapid on disagreements with health officials: We have one enemy — coronavirus

Amid a debate over the role of health officials in guiding government policy, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, meeting with his Yesh Atid party’s ministers, says he will “not allow a situation in which the government and officials are vying for credit.”

“The professionals in health, economics and education will submit recommendations and the government will decide. This is the hierarchy and there is no other,” Lapid says in statements put out by Yesh Atid.

“We have not yet defeated the virus. We all have one enemy – the coronavirus,” he adds.

During a briefing with Israeli journalists while in New York this week, Prime Minster Naftali Bennett took a swipe at officials advising the government on its coronavirus approach, amid reported disagreements over whether to impose further restrictions.

The premier made several comments criticizing officials, saying, among other things, that “they don’t see the full picture” and that they had “stuttered” when he demanded explanations for their call to further limit public gatherings.

During his speech at the UN, Bennett said that “while doctors are an important input, they cannot be the ones running the national initiative. The only person that has a good vantage point of all considerations is the national leader of any given country.”